Oct 10, 2018

We haven’t forgotten about Florence

We must not forget about the people hurt by Hurricane Florence -- even as Hurricane Michael targets the Florida Panhandle and prepares to soak communities northward and still drying out from Florence.

Who can forget the images of dead fish drying out along a highway? Or the hog waste lagoons that overtopped? Or the rare bit of good news -- the solar and wind farms that bounced back the next day, while coal- and nuclear-fired electricity remained out for weeks.

What the people of North Carolina need is a just recovery. That means a recovery for the people of Wilmington, a port city where African Americans have been fighting for their right to exist since the 19th century, now adjacent to industrial-scale hog farms. And the people of Belews Creek, an unincorporated community that has been the rallying point against the state's failure to adequately contain coal ash from leaching into drinking water. Too often, climate injustice goes hand in hand with racial injustice.

NC WARN is a climate justice group advocating in North Carolina, primarily against Duke Energy. The good folk at NC WARN have established the Hurricane Florence Emergency Relief and Recovery Fund. Donations are tax deductible, and NC WARN is passing on 100 percent of all funds raised to needy small groups on the front lines of climate justice.

Donations to this fund will support groups that do not have the capacity to receive online donations, but who are already providing leadership and offering direct services to those bearing the brunt of economic and environmental devastation.

We're hyper-focused on elections right now -- building our climate wave, flipping the House, and all the email work that goes along with it -- but we must not forget why you and I fight. We fight for justice. We fight for a liveable climate. We fight for those who can't fight for themselves. We fight for love.